Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Review: "Dead Ever After," by Charlaine Harris

So far, 2013 has brought the end of two long-running series
that I’ve had mixed feelings about. Granted, I didn’t live with Charlaine
Harris’ Southern Vampire series quite as long as the Wheel of Time, but “Dead
Ever After” ($27.95 , Ace) also didn’t give me quite as satisfying an ending.

Last year’s “Deadlocked” pleased me in that it seemed that
Harris’ story was finally clicking back into place after being lost in the
wilderness for a while. I thought that she’d gotten caught up a little bit in
the longer contract and the “True Blood” phenomenon and was stretching to keep
the story alive. I said in my review of that book that I almost felt the click,
when it got back to the story that she’d planned, and I was hoping for a big
bang of a finale with this one. Instead, I found it disappointing.

Sookie’s relationships are struggling after the closing
events of “Deadlocked.” She’s on the rocks with Eric, who is not communicating
with her after she saved Sam’s life, and Sam hasn’t been as grateful as she
believes he should be. Meanwhile, other forces are moving against Sookie. As she tries to bring her life back to some
semblance of normal, Arlene Fowler, freshly out of jail, walks into Merlotte’s
asking for her job back. Naturally, Sookie refuses and Arlene leaves in a very
public huff.

The next day, guess who Sam finds in the dumpster at the
back of the bar? Yep. Arlene. And she’s been strangled with one of Sookie’s
scarves. That launches a story that should have Sookie fighting for her freedom
and her life, with a few surprises along the way.

Harris uses this book as an opportunity to reintroduce quite
a few characters that have disappeared from the series, some of whom really don’t
seem to have any reason to be there other than simply being seen and some of
whom we really didn’t care about seeing again anyway.

That’s the main problem that I have with “Dead Ever After” –
it seems very contrived from the plot, to the character appearances to the rush
to wrap up loose ends. True enough, Harris’ books have never been about depth.
They’ve always been more quick, fun reads, but this book in particular seems to
breeze past some crucial plot points and everything is wrapped up much more
easily than it probably should be. I never had any real feeling that Sookie was
in danger of being locked away for the murder of Arlene, and though there were
some moments that I felt tension and suspense in the other aspects of the
story, I never really thought things might end badly.

Sookie’s relationship issues were even less interesting to
me, and also wrapped up far too easily and quickly without much tension or
struggle. I actually laughed during the “big love scene” near the end, but for
the wrong reasons, not because of the joke that Harris wrote into it.

For a series that started out with so much enjoyment for me,
it ends on a down note. Maybe I expected too much from the “big finale,” but it
reads to me more like one of those struggling middle books that just happens to
tie most everything up.

I still think the early books in this series are great, but
between Alan Ball’s abomination and what Harris herself has done to the series
in the later books – and I do believe the two things are related – I’d be
hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone who isn’t already involved.

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About Me

I am a veteran entertainment writer with a love of hard rock and heavy metal. I've written music reviews, columns and feature stories for several newspapers, Web sites and a national wire service. I've run Hall of the Mountain King in various places and incarnations since 1997.